Seeing the Colossal Increase at Yahoo Sites in comScore’s U.S. Online Video Rankings

If you compare the latest data from comScore Video Metrix with the data from a year ago, then you’ll see there’s been a colossal increase in video viewing at Yahoo sites.

In February 2012, 179 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in February 2012. By comparison, 170 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in February 2011. That’s an increase of 5.3 percent for this year’s 29-day month compared to the previous year’s 28-day month.

Move along, nothing to see here.

In February 2012, Google sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property with 147.4 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo sites with 60.9 million, VEVO with 52 million, Facebook.com with 43.6 million, and Viacom Digital with 43.2 million.

In February 2011, Google sites ranked as the top online video content property with 141.1 million unique viewers, followed by VEVO with 49.0 million viewers, Microsoft sites with 48.8 million, Yahoo sites with 46.7 million, and Facebook.com with nearly 46.7 million.

So, Yahoo sites are up 30.4 percent, VEVO is up 6.1 percent, and Google sites are up 4.5 percent, while Viacom Digital is down 4.4 percent, Facebook.com is down 6.6 percent, and Microsoft sites are down 18.0 percent.

The colossal increase in video viewing at Yahoo sites is being driven by the Yahoo-ABC News network. According to a comScore report released last week, the Yahoo-ABC News network streamed more than 410 million videos in February 2012, beating the closest competition, MSNBC, by 163 percent and CNN by 282 percent. In fact, more than half of the 814 million online news and information videos streamed last month came from the Yahoo-ABC News network.

Since the two companies’ alliance in October 2011, ABC News has rolled out a slate of original video programs featuring its lineup of anchors and reporters to Yahoo’s online audience. Since their launch, “Around the World with Christiane Amanpour,” “This Could be Big” with Bill Weir, and the “Newsmakers” interview series have grown 107 percent. In December 2011, ABC News and Yahoo News launched a political news series, “Power Players.” Additional series from ABC News and Yahoo News are currently in development and will launch in 2012.

Yahoo also recently announced the launch of “Remake America,” a new weekly video series that follows the lives of six real families as they strive to get back on track toward achieving “the American dream.” For a sneak peak at the second episode in the ‘Remake America’ series, check out “Tough economy and health care troubles test small business owners.”

The Yahoo-ABC News Network is also the leader in unique users and page views. More than 89 million people visited content on the network’s various properties including Yahoo News, Finance and Entertainment as well as ABCNews.com, OTUSNews.com and Goodmorningamerica.com in February 2012 – that is 30 million more than the CNN network the closest competition.

GoodMorningAmerica.com on Yahoo has also become the leading morning news show website just as “Good Morning America” announced the smallest weekly total viewer gap with “Today” in five years. Last week’s comScore report revealed that 28 million viewers visited the five-month-old site versus Today.com which had an online audience of 13 million. Twice as many people made Goodmorningamerica.com their online destination for around-the-clock news and robust video beating out all of the competition.

In other news, the February 2012 YouTube partner data from comScore Video Metrix revealed that video music channels VEVO (with 50.8 million viewers) and Warner Music (with 29.9 million viewers) maintained the top two positions. Gaming channel Machinima ranked third with 22.9 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios Inc. with 14.4 million, FullScreen with 12 million and Warner Bros (“The Ellen Show”) with 9 million.

The January 2012 YouTube partner data revealed that VEVO had 50.6 million viewers and Warner Music had 29.7 million viewers. Gaming channel Machinima ranked third in January with 23.8 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios Inc. with 12.5 million, FullScreen with 11.6 million, and Big Frame with 8.2 million.

What does this mean to marketers? It means you need to keep your eyes open – wide open. In fact, you need eyes the size of a basketball like the colossal squid and its cousin, the giant squid. Why do they have the largest eyes on earth? So, they can see a sperm whale in time to escape its gaping jaws, according to a recent report in Current Biology.

Yes, the changes in the online video rankings are that colossal. They are as colossal as the giant squid depicted in the illustration from the original edition of “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”

Here we’ll take a look at the basic things you need to know in regards to search engine optimisation, a discipline that everyone in your organisation should at least be aware of, if not have a decent technical understanding.